But we are rarely rational when it comes to doling out our worries. I admit that I spend more time fretting about coming down with the deadly hantavirus (total reported cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control: 465) than worrying about humdrum old heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in this country -- and which runs in my family. Other people are terrified to get on an airplane but think nothing of driving without a seat belt, or won't lay a finger on bagged spinach but smoke a pack a day.

Which is to say that, as worrywarts, we have a flair for the macabre. All the statistical reality-checks in the world won't soothe the anguished doomster.

Physicists and astronomers sometimes find themselves on the wrong end of this equation. After all, they make their living studying extraordinary objects that, given certain tremendously improbable circumstances, could maybe, possibly, conceivably wipe out life on Earth.

Humans have a long history of pinning their anxieties on astronomical events. Comets were taken to be bad omens; eclipses menaced irrevocable darkness.

Latter-day scientists have the same trouble. Consider the flap over the Large Hadron Collider (LHC): This particle accelerator, slated to power up later this year, may create mini black holes.

Advertisement

Black holes? Here on Earth? The Internet lit up with doomsday chatter that has been only partially quelled by scientific assurances that, as the LHC Web site puts it, "Microscopic black holes will not eat you." (Wondering why? First, scientists aren't even sure the LHC will collide particles fast enough to hatch black holes. And if it does, the black holes will disappear almost as quickly as they appeared. The trick will be figuring out that they ever existed.)

Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is getting the doomsday treatment. Earlier this month, NOAA announced that a new solar cycle is dawning. A single negative-polarity sunspot rang in Solar Cycle 24, and scientists predict that the sun will be teeming with storms by the time the cycle peaks, in 2012.

2012 just happens to ring a doomsday bell for end-of-the-worlders who base their predictions on the ancient Maya calendar. That calendar, they say, comes to a dead stop in 2012 -- apparently foretelling our doomsyear. Of course, the same argument would suggest that the "Y2K problem" was a millennial end-of-days message from FORTRAN programmers, but I digress.

I won't waste good column-inches on the details of the 2012 argument, but it has something to do with "galactic alignment," the positions of Jupiter and Saturn and, of course, the coming solar maximum.

Scientists at the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder have their own worries about the increased solar activity. They warn that solar storms could disrupt satellite communication, overwhelm GPS signals, cripple power grids, and irradiate astronauts in space.

But those are practical worries, the kind you can actually take action to fix. They don't have the lurid magnetism of doomsday galactic alignments or devouring black holes. And perhaps that's the trouble: We would rather dwell on the end of the world than take action to improve the world today.

Your article states that "black holes will disappear almost as quickly as they appeared." You state this with such certainty, that it's almost believable. However, you can't be certain about that statement, can you? The fact is to make that statement with certainty, you'd actually have to have some evidence of black-hole disappearing. Such evidence doesn't exist.

I may be part of the reason for the internet lighting up as you state. I am in the process of advancing a new theoretic model, The Dominium, with major implications. The scariest implication is that mini-black-holes will not disappear as you assure.

Battle over the new model has been fierce on my blog at Scientific American. http://science-community.sciam.com/blog/Hasanuddins-Blog/300005039I invite anyone to come and join the "fun." I only wish to make one request, please read the model before posting. There have been some who have argued against the model, yet refused to consider its merits. Actually, none of the detractors have claimed to read it. Those that have read it have had nothing but good words to say about it. A free downloadable version can be had at http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/u56srb

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story